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redletterdave writes "Days after the New York Times released a brutal review of Tesla's electric Model S sedan, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has fired back, claiming the Times article was completely bogus and misleading. In the article in question, Times writer John Broder took the Tesla Model S on a test drive from Washington to Boston, stopping at various service plazas in Delaware and Connecticut well within the projected 265-mile range of the car, as rated by the EPA. However, Broder's Tesla Model S, despite a heftier 85 kilowatt-hour battery for an extra 100 miles of range in 'ideal conditions,' died shortly before reaching its final destination. Broder blames the cold weather and heating issues for his abridged trip; Musk, however, claims the driver did not follow Tesla's instructions, which is why his trip was cut so short. 'We've taken great pains to ensure that the car works very well in the cold, which is why we're so incensed by this ridiculous article,' Musk said."

That is indeed what the logs do say: The car was not fully-charged, and the journalist took a detour from the given route. The logs are only on the test models, though regular customers can get them added if they want. I imagine this means they aren't meant to be real-time monitors that you look at frequently.

It wasn't fully charged, but he didn't need it to be fully charged.
It had plenty of charge indicated to get him to the next charging station.

He charged until the computer said he had sufficient juice for his planned route and driving style (assuming the Tesla is like my LEAF, the car estimates your driving efficiency based on your past driving). Then he took a longer route and drove more aggressively. Surprise, surprise, the charge the computer (correctly) estimated was sufficient for one route and style was not enough for another route and style.

This is like putting barely enough gasoline in your car for the planned journey and then taking a longer trip and wondering why you ran out of gas. The problem is between the seat and the steering wheel.

From the reporter's account it doesn't seem like his route deviated in any significant way from what he had advised Tesla he would be taking. As noted in his reply to Musk's accusations [nytimes.com],

Mr. Musk has referred to a “long detour” on my trip. He is apparently referring to a brief stop in Manhattan on my way to Connecticut that, according to Google Maps, added precisely two miles to the overall distance traveled from the Delaware Supercharger to Milford (202 miles with the stop versus 200 miles had I taken the George Washington Bridge instead of the Lincoln Tunnel). At that point, I was already experiencing anxiety about range and had called a Tesla employee from the New Jersey Turnpike to ask how to stretch the battery. She said to shut off the cruise control to take advantage of battery regeneration from occasional braking and slowing down. Based on that advice, I was under the impression that stop-and-go driving at low speeds in the city would help, not hurt, my mileage.

Before I set out from my home in suburban Washington, I informed Tesla that I intended to make a brief stop in New York and that I would spend the night in the vicinity of Milford rather than attempting to make it to Boston, which was theoretically possible with a full charge at Milford, although it was a bitterly cold night — and that clearly affects the car’s range. I added 185 miles of range at Milford, knowing that I wouldn’t need 242 or 265 miles before recharging the next morning.

When I parked the car for the night at a hotel, the range meter showed 90 miles remaining, and I was about 45 miles from the Milford Supercharger. As I recounted in the article, when I awoke the next morning the indicated range was 25 miles. The rest of that story is told in the article, including a Tesla official’s counsel, which I followed, that an hour of charging at the Norwich, Conn., utility would restore much of the range lost overnight, which had disappeared because of what he called a “software glitch.”

I don't see where the actual size of his detour (2 miles) or style of driving, as he described it, should have had a dramatic effect on the vehicle's range. It doesn't seem like the problem, at least according to his account, is between the seat and the steering wheel.

She said to shut off the cruise control to take advantage of battery regeneration from occasional braking and slowing down. Based on that advice, I was under the impression that stop-and-go driving at low speeds in the city would help, not hurt, my mileage.

This demonstrates a distinct lack of understanding of basic physics: you can't magically get extra energy from regenerative braking, even if it were 100% efficient (which it certainly isn't). The reporter is an idiot. The supposed Tesla employee he talked to is probably also an idiot, though for all we know the reporter misunderstood something she was trying to explain (how many of us have had customers leap to startlingly illogical conclusions after an attempt at explaining something technical to them?).

The other thing to note is that while the overall mileage of the drive is nearly the same, the detour involved much more city driving. That means slower driving, and that means running the car for a much longer period. If the detour through the city added an extra 30 minutes of running-time to the trip, that would have meant more energy use regardless of the nearly-identical distance. Especially if the reporter was running the heater (I'm curious if that was the case, but seems likely given the weather), since an electric vehicle probably doesn't produce waste heat and has to generate heat for the heater by further sapping juice from the battery.

. That means slower driving, and that means running the car for a much longer period.

I don't think that makes sense in the context of an electric motor. An ICE has to idle while the car is stationary, and rev faster in lower gears when moving around slowly, but the electric motor only turns when propelling the car, and there is a single gear.

The Tesla S carrying an 85kWh battery is supposed to use 37 kWh/100 mi on the highway, and 38 in the city, which is a difference of ~2.5%

Based on that advice, I was under the impression that stop-and-go driving at low speeds in the city would help, not hurt, my mileage.

He's thinking that repeatedly cycling between 0 and 10 is going to help his mileage. Do you really think that anyone driving a hybrid would think this is the case?

Why does a reporter get an exemption for being an idiot? Driving in NYC for 2 miles is a massive detour when you consider the weather - not only was he losing lots more charge in those 2 miles than in the next 50 of cruising with gradual changes in speed, he also likely had the heat on, which is just going to drain the battery even faster than before.

Well I must say that 2 miles in Manhattan is unlike driving anywhere else. For example: I have two options to take a bus out of New York to get to Boston, each on opposite sides of the island -- the width being very close to 2 miles. Taking the bus starting from the west side actually adds about 1 hour to the overall trip, just trying to get out of Manhattan.

"She said to shut off the cruise control to take advantage of battery regeneration from occasional braking and slowing down. Based on that advice, I was under the impression that stop-and-go driving at low speeds in the city would help, not hurt, my mileage. "

I can't imagine how someone would think those situations to be comparable: highway driving vs. cross-town in Manhattan are practically the defining opposite points of the driving spectrum. "Occasional slowing down" is not the same as "stop-and-go" every block for 50 block-stoplights.

The car may not have been fully charged, but it was charged to the point where it displayed "Charging Complete" (which is apparently about 90% charge), at which point the estimated range displayed by the car should have covered the distance to his destination with no problems.

and the journalist took a detour from the given route.

A two-mile detour into Manhattan. Which he was thinking might actually increase the range, seeing that air resistance is lower at slower speeds, and regenerative braking can help recoup much of the energy lost by a gasoline-powered car during stop-and-go driving. Have you noticed how hybrids have a higher MPG for city driving vs. highway, whereas gas-powered cars have a higher MPG for highway vs. city? It turns out that he was wrong--driving at a slower speed is what saves energy, not the stop-and-go driving of going through a city, but a two mile detour is hardly the make or break thing that Musk is making it out to be.

Two miles in Manhattan probably took him an hour to an hour and a half. Look at the Google estimates for the Delaware to NYC (2 hours 26 minutes) and NYC to Milford (1 hour 26 minutes) legs of the trip - it totals under 4 hours. He left Delaware at 12:24pm, and arrived in Milford at 5:45pm - that's more than 5 hours, and almost 5 and a half. He spent more than an hour in NYC, probably an hour and a half, with at least 30 minutes in pure stop-and-go hell, since he's in midtown right around the time traffic starts to build up.

Mod parent down for mis-information. When the reporter got up in the morning, 2/3 of the miles did indeed disappear from the care overnight. Why did you leave out the rest of the article that would essentially refute your post? Here's the rest:

1) He was instructed to then condition the battery. After some time, the support team "cleared [him] to resume the trip to Milford." We can only speculate what is meant by "cleared." Did they clear the battery conditioning, so that he simply needed to continue with normal procedures to complete his trip? Or did they clear him in the sense that he could stop charging as well and should just head back, disregarding any future messages from the vehicle?

2) From the article: Looking back, I should have bought a membership to Butch’s and spent a few hours there while the car charged. The displayed range never reached the number of miles remaining to Milford, and as I limped along at about 45 miles per hour I saw increasingly dire dashboard warnings to recharge immediately. Mr. Merendino, the product planner, found an E.V. charging station about five miles away. If the display clearly showed that there was not enough range, why did the reporter not bring this up with the support team? Instead, he drove anyway. Is it a surprise, then, that he never made it back?

Whose fault it is is somewhat irrelevant. Do you want a car that you have to remember to plug-in overnight and which you have to carefully plan your trips to ensure that you can get to the next refuelling station? Even if you fully understand how they work and their limitations you can easily make a mistake by forgetting to plug it in and suddenly you can't drive to work the next day because it takes several hours to charge.

The difference is, with a gas car, once a week. With an all electric, every day.

A 20 gallon tank at 14MPG (aka a typical pickup) or an 11 gallon tank at 26MPG (typical passenger sedan) both have a comparable total range. You don't, however, generally drive 300 miles a day (or if you do, you know the location and hours of every gas station on the way), so you wouldn't need to "top off" your EV any more "daily" than you would that same pickup or sedan.

That said - Every night, you park your car somewhere in the vicinity of conveniently available grid power. In exchange for five seconds of plugging it in every night, you never need to stop at a gas station in the cold rain and then need to go inside to see the clerk when the stupid damned machine can't read your credit card or the ticket printer breaks.

Do I sound too much like an apologist there? Hey, the Tesla S costs way too much and I don't have one. But I won't hold things against it that apply to any vehicle on the road. Cars take a certain minimum level of basic care and feeding, whether you feed them dead dinosaurs or uranium electrons, to function properly. Simple as that.

The main difference is that with a petrol or diesel powered vehicle, I can make unscheduled, unplanned trips whenever I wish without having to worry about where I will next refuel it - if I need fuel, I just pop to the nearest station, which there will be a plethora of within 100 miles unless you are seriously out in the sticks. Refueling takes 5 minutes, and I'm back on my way to my unplanned destination without issue.

One day I get to work and my phone rings - its my father, he's had a heart attack. He lives 250 miles away. I need to drive back home, grab a bag with a few essentials in it, and drive to the hospital. I don't want to have to stop at my house for hours to recharge my vehicle, or stop en-route for an hour to top it up etc etc.

Electric vehicles are still crippled by the fact that you cannot ever have an unplanned excursion of any length in one.

I would. And with a long waiting list [plugincars.com] it would seem I'm not alone. By all accounts the Model S is every bit as "up-scale" and luxurious as any BMW or Mercedes. Oh yeah, and then there's that whole 2013 Motor Trend Car of the Year [motortrend.com] thing... Who in their right mind would want a BMW when they could have a Tesla for the same price?

I commute and when home I tend to walk/cycle around town so my car spends 22 out of every 24 hours parked. At weekends it might sit there from friday night to monday morning untouched. If I plugged it in at home and at work then I'd never need to worry about it.

Problem is that that's the opposite of liquid fuelled cars, people are used to charging during their journey. It's a complete mental shift, and we all know how good humans are at that, I'm honestly surprised no one attacked the Tesla with a pitch fork, the bastard demon magic car!

The main difference is that with a [horse], I can make unscheduled, unplanned trips whenever I wish without having to worry about where I will next refuel it - if I need fuel, I just [let him rest and eat some oats out of my bag, or grass off the ground], which there will be a plethora of [in the immiediate area] unless you are seriously out in the [desert]. [Resting the horse] takes 5 minutes, and I'm back on my way to my unplanned destination without issue.

One day I get to work and my phone rings - its my father, he's had a heart attack. He lives 250 miles away. I need to [ride] back home, grab a bag with a few essentials in it, and [ride] to the hospital. I don't want to have to [find some petrol] to [refuel] my vehicle, or stop en-route [at the general store] to top it up etc etc.

[Horseless carriages] are still crippled by the fact that you cannot ever have an unplanned excursion of any length in one.

Except if you live on the west coast, you already have a plethora of places to charge your EV (California has the Tesla charging stations, and Oregon and Washington have the West Coast Electric Highway). Additionally, at least here in Oregon, there are plenty of places to plug in an electric vehicle in parking lots.. public EV charging stations are everywhere if you know where to look.

Of course electric cars are not suitable to drive across the country at a drop of a hat, neither were regular gasoline cars when they came out 100 years ago. AAA used to have maps indicating how much extra fuel you would need to carry to get from one city to another, as there were often not enough refueling stations in between. Most households have more than one car, so keep a regular gasoline car around if you are worried random unplanned trips. For planned trips, rent a car/van for the week if you have to

The difference is, with a gas car, once a week. With an all electric, every day.

People seem to do okay with recharging their cell phones, they just get into the habit of plugging them in before going to bed.

For electric cars, it's similar; you just get into the habit of plugging it in when you get home.

Even if you do that every day, it still takes less up less of your time than driving to the nearest gas station, possibly waiting in line for a pump, paying with your credit card, and pumping the gas. It's much cheaper too.

As I understand it, the Tesla can get up to 300 miles on a charge. So you probably don't have to plug it in every day.

The problem is that if you run out of gas, you curse and call AAA. They'll stop by and give you a gallon of gas, which will probably get you to the nearest gas station. From there you can add more gasoline and go on your merry way. Maybe a half-hour of inconvenience, depending on where you are.

If you run out of electricity...? Can you charge your car off of another car's engine? How lo

The problem is that if you run out of gas, you curse and call AAA. They'll stop by and give you a gallon of gas, which will probably get you to the nearest gas station. From there you can add more gasoline and go on your merry way. Maybe a half-hour of inconvenience, depending on where you are.

Half an hour, you say? HAHAHAHAHA!

I can tell you right now that I *know* that you've never had to call AAA.

Ever. In your entire life.

Because it's alway45 minutes and up to "whenever the tow truck driver gets to you" even in an urban, civilized area. It's not laziness, it's just that there are so many people with AAA cards and not enough tow drivers.

The difference is, with a gas car, once a week. With an all electric, every day.

It really is impossible to explain to a gas car owner what a fantastic, beautiful world it is to live in where your car always has a full "tank" every morning when you come into your garage. Yes I need to take five seconds to plug it in once a day when I come home to make this world possible. I do not have to visit a gas station at all, ever, for any reason.

It is a different world. I am not a poet and I do not have the words to fully make it justice. It has to be lived.

It's impossible to explain to an electric car owner the beauty that exists in the world outside of their commute to work and urban/suburban living.

Heh. You must have not read up on the range of Tesla's cars. I regularly make several hundred km trips in mine, and that is at a time when there is not yet any infrastructure built out specifically to support them. When I need to charge I currently do so from outlets that exist for other reasons entirely - once we start seeing EV-specific quick chargers where they're actually needed a wonderful world is set to become even greater still.:-)

Right, the power needs to come from somewhere. But electricity transmission is significantly more efficient than gas transmission, there's the difference. A non-trivial amount of gas is used to drive gas to a station so you can get it. Last time I checked, the EPA estimates that electrical transmission is 10% more efficient than taking gas to a gas station.

Doesn't change the fact that coal is shitty, but you can't really polish a turd.

(Hint: It's called a block heater, and good fucking luck getting your car started at -40 when you forgot to plug in overnight.)

What brand of car do you buy ?
I live in Montreal and I never plugged a car in my life. Well, except that old Nissan that refused to start under -25 unless I plugged it for an hour.
and I've owned a lot of old cars.

I currently own a Subaru and the day it refuse to start because it's too cold is the day I will go shop for another one.

I live in Winnipeg and this past month we saw -35c to -40c at night (-50c with the wind). Most 6+ cylinder cars that are outside and don't get plugged in pretty much don't start. Myself I have a 6 cylinder high output engine (high compression) and even parked in the garage one day it barely started, took 3 attempts to get it going. Most 4 cylinder cars with good batteries usually don't need to be plugged in at those temps, might run without oil for a couple of seconds but it will start.

But they can expect the user to understand that the range would be reduced accordingly.

No, they cannot. Please tell me, how many miles should I deduct from the "remaining miles" indicator if I want to have +60F in the cabin, and it is +10F outside, and the speed will be 55 mph to the northwest, and the wind is 20 mph from the east, and there are three of us in the car (one is a dog of medium size.)

Myself, I cannot imagine how to calculate that in my head. Those are all important variables, you cannot d

And it totally makes sense that to drive a hundred grand luxury car that you'd have to take only the direct routes, not the ones you may actually want to take. This is a gigantic failure of useability.

And it totally makes sense that to drive a hundred grand luxury car that you'd have to take only the direct routes, not the ones you may actually want to take. This is a gigantic failure of useability.

The main downsides to electric cars are:- Range- Refueling time (charging)- Cost/Maintenance of the batteries

These limitations aren't new. If they severely impact you then an electric car is not suitable at the moment; end of story.

I wonder if there was a software glitch telling him the car was fully charged while it wasn't.

As for driving through Manhattan - yeah I know, it eats up fuel; but, it's within the supposed range. In the writers defense, nobody told him that city driving would be worse for the car. Hell, the popular assumption with regenerative braking is that it's actually better because you'll regenerate more power as you brake.

From what I read, he did not "forget" to charge the car, he just used the fast-charging option until the car computer told him "you've got enough juice to cover your planned journey".

Otherwise, the article is on par with my experience with hybrids and all-electric vehicles -- the electric motor/battery underperforms. In another 10 or 20 years and a breakthrough or two in batteries or cold fusion, maybe the electric car will be a comparable offering, but currently it is good only to show off.

Well, that's what Tesla want you to assume anyway. The detour, going above the speed limit etc. were apparently on the first leg of the journey which was hairy but not really the problem. The real problem was that he then went and gave the car enough charge to make the planned next leg with some to spare if it wasn't for the car losing the majority of its charge overnight, an issue Tesla Motors apparently neglected to mention. That left him unexpectedly stranded with insufficient charge to reach a rechargin

The reported range dropped overnight because HE FAILED TO PLUG IT IN. Which the manual tells you do. So he disregarded the manual. Then he got in a car reporting 32 miles of range and drove it 51 miles until the battery was empty. Would a reasonable person do that? No.

I hadn't read the review until Musk started talking about it. This alone made more news than the article. In the end I don't think there will be a large effect on sales; those who can afford to buy a Tesla will buy one whether or not it runs a little shorter in the cold. That said, if the logs reflect that the car wasn't fully charged, then Musk does have a valid reason to complain.

leaning towards Musk not having a valid reason. Tesla gets pretty pissy about any negative PR -- recall the debacle between them and Top Gear, which amounted to nothing more than Tesla being crybabies.

Let me clarify: I do think he over-reacted. That said, not fully charging an electric car's battery before doing a range test is somewhat irresponsible of the reviewer, and it's not hard to see why Tesla might not be happy with the results of the test. Perhaps the NYT should fully charge the car over night, then re-run the test.

Meh, my Porsche has a rated range of about 350 miles. That's really not all that much further than the Tesla S. And according to what I average, with my driving style its closer to 317.

Yet, I don't worry much about making "short trips" of a couple hundred miles even if the tank is only half full when I set out, for the simple reason that I am really rarely more than a couple dozen miles from a place to fill up, and there is pretty much always a gas station before any large stretches of highway.

That is really all the issue here with the Tesla. Its not the range so much that is a problem, but the availability of places to refill. If I can quick charge a Tesla S for 200 miles pretty much anywhere then I'll never have to do an overnight charge to get the 265 absolute max.

I'm not sure how ubiquitous fast-charge stations are for the tesla or electric cars in general in new york... or anywhere else for that matter. But if they can get even a good fraction of the penetration that regular gas stations have, the tesla's range is already good enough for most people. And its only going to get better.

But right now it's more like boating or flying - "use 1/3 of your fuel coming, 1/3 of your fuel going and keep at least 1/3 of fuel in reserve". In the air or on the water, running out of fuel is at least incredibly inconvenient, usually rather dangerous.

So, it's a completely different mind set. This will likely improve over time, but for now you're going to have pretend that you are an intrepid explorer, wandering the wilds of dark America.

Tesla got a copy of the script for Top Gear - written before they drove the car - and it had pre-planned a battery disaster. That was the major beef - it was a fix, a fraud. (Top Gear is not a auto review show - it is entertaiment) I think that on trial the matter of the fake-drained script simply wasn't considered. The judge simply ruled that the TV show was a known bender of facts and that the show, even doctored as it was, didn't hurt Tesla - no libel, no financial harm. He simply ruled that the audience

The highest price for model S is $87,400 [teslamotors.com]. The lowest priced model for which the range is still defined (60kWh battery) is $62,400. Me thinks you are using the prices for the Roadster [wikipedia.org].

Quite right. I noticed that as well. Of course TFA [nytimes.com] has the following line:

Feeding the 416 horsepower motor of the top-of-the-line Model S Performance edition is a half-ton lithium-ion battery pack slung beneath the cockpit; that combination is capable of flinging this $101,000 luxury car through the quarter mile as quickly as vaunted sport sedans like the Cadillac CTS-V.

You may not have heard about it, but plenty of other people did when Tesla's stock price plummeted 2.5% moments after the review was uploaded to New York Times's website. The damage was immediate. In other words, Tesla lost $100 Million in capital in a matter of minutes because of the New York Times's review. That could be a devastating libel claim, but in the mean time, Tesla has to deal with $100 million fewer dollars.

This was on boing boing a few days ago and one conclusion was that the Tesla charging stations are spaced at almost the maximum range of the car but the car can't get that range in cold weather when the cabin heater is being used. In an electric car there is not enough parasitic heat loss to heat the cabin so the energy comes from the batteries.

This is similar to the issue with ICE (internal combustion engine) where if it is really hot outside and you run the AC really high, you will drain the battery more. I think people need some more education as to the limitations of battery powered cars. It is probably not common knowledge that the heater in an all electric car uses the battery extensively vs. just blowing heat off of the radiator. Also, people need to shift their expectations based on the architecture of their vehicle. Some ICE engines n

The NYT review has now been seen by at least an order of magnitude more people than would have had any awareness of it had Tesla's CEO made no comment about it at all. The vast majority of Telsa's previous reviews have been of glowing, fanboy type. Now they've completely countered those reviews by causing this article to become the most prominent one on the Internet.

In the digital age, when the press gets something wrong (especially in an opinion piece) it's just usually better to walk away.

Unless they completely screwed you over, and you have evidence to prove that.

Being right has nothing to do with [not] being stomped into the mud. One necessary condition here is the ability of the audience to comprehend your proof.

In this case, though, I think Tesla is wrong. The reporter drove the car exactly per instructions, and he was frequently on the phone with Tesla. He charged the car also per instructions. I do not know if he used the mode "Kill my battery but give me 10% more range" - but no

Have you ever read how EPA estimates are done? You put a car on a dyno and run it through some fanciful schedule for what a "trip" should consist of. Too many hills, some extra wind, or a heavy foot will heavily skew real-world numbers. If your car gets 50mpg, what sane person would pump one gallon of gas and set out across the desert for the next gas station, 50 miles away. I get the iPhone joke, but if you're trying to max the car's economy, you very well could be driving it the wrong way.

Lithium batteries really don't handle cold temperatures very well at all -- one of the many reasons that aircraft have continued to use good old fashioned Nickel-cadmium or lead-acid batteries (until the Dreamliner came along).

When they're too cold, they neither take a full charge, nor do they deliver their rated capacity or maximum current.

I would say that, given the weather on the East Coast of the USA during the drive, this played a significant factor in the lack of range encountered -- but I acknowledge that it may not be the only factor.

Perhaps another factor is the enhanced need to heat the passenger compartment. Unlike a regular IC-powered car, there's very little "waste heat" in an EV so perhaps over-zealous use was made of the electric heating - thus producing further heavy drain on the battery and reducing range.

The problem (for Tesla) is that people don't want an EV that comes with a long list of "don'ts" and "cautions" in respect to power management and the effects of low/high temperatures on range. They just want a car they can unplug, jump in and drive -- with an unqualified guarantee of a known range. That's effectively what they get now with their IC-powered cars and that's what they want from any replacement.

The fastest way to look overly-sensitive and closed minded is to blame the press. It's just about the worst PR move you can make.

What they should have done is issue a press release that they were working closely with the reporter to find out what anomolies may have occured so they can improve the design if needed. They are in serious need of a new PR firm.

After making arrangements to recharge at the Norwich station, I located the proper adapter in the trunk, plugged in and walked to the only warm place nearby, Butch’s Luncheonette and Breakfast Club, an establishment (smoking allowed) where only members can buy a cup of coffee or a plate of eggs. But the owners let me wait there while the Model S drank its juice. Tesla’s experts said that pumping in a little energy would help restore the power lost overnight as a result of the cold weather, and after an hour they cleared me to resume the trip to Milford.

Looking back, I should have bought a membership to Butch’s and spent a few hours there while the car charged. The displayed range never reached the number of miles remaining to Milford, and as I limped along at about 45 miles per hour I saw increasingly dire dashboard warnings to recharge immediately. Mr. Merendino, the product planner, found an E.V. charging station about five miles away.

My questions are:

When they cleared you to go, was that with respect to the conditioning of the battery? That is, did they clear you insofar as the battery conditioning was concerned, or did they say something to the effect of "ok stop charging and just go regardless of any other warnings/messages" ?

If the display range never reached the number of miles remaining to Milford, why the fuck did you not call the support team back and point this out to them? Instead, you ignored a very clear message regarding your inability to reach Milford, and then proceeded to complain when that became a reality

I used to have a 2005 BMW. Whenever I filled it up it would show 330 miles to empty. Yet after 200 city miles the tank would be dry. Amazingly the car was not able to see the future and know how many lights I'd have to stop at. What a crap car. I'll write a scathing article about it.

Conventional cars are so well evolved that people have very high expectations. I've had less than one breakdown per 100,000 miles. I can drive almost any car until the "low gas"light turns on, and then have >30 miles range to reach a gas station. When I fill my car at the pump it is filled. No fast fill / slow fill. No trickle-fill. If I somehow don't completely fill it, the gas gage doesn't read full and I can refill a few hours later. Most cars will drive ~400 miles on a tank, and its rare in this country to have to go more than 50 miles to find a gas station.

It sounds like the electric car works as designed when used by a knowledgeable person. The problem is that people don't need to be knowledgeable about conventional cars. If you buy a new car it just works.

So while I don't think the Tesla car is in any way bad, it just doesn't meet the exceptionally high expectations for usability that Americans have come to expect.

Drive the car in only the optimum temperature for the batteries and engine; preferably at a high enough altitude to minimize drag; have it driven by someone of the stature of a Thoroughbred jockey, who provides their own light weight thermal compensation to eliminate heater/AC use, and, of course, their own sound system; turn off the lights; always drive down hill and with the wind.

Using these techniques, it is likely you will achieve the advertised range, otherwise, much, much less. Top Gear had the same issue with the sports car (drive it "fun" and the range is nearly nothing) and prevailed.

These work as well for liquid-fueled (gasoline, diesel, alcohol) automobiles and motorcycles, but, for those, you can carry extra fuel in case you're really going to be a long way from one of the much more plentiful liquid fuel stations.

I still don't understand why I see so much hatred towards the exciting advancements of electric cars on a technology web forum. Everyone is quick to point out that it can't make long distance trips, but the average person rarely does that. Hell, I own a car with an ICE and I still rent a car when going on long trips because I don't want the extra mileage put onto my car and I can rent a car with nearly double the fuel economy of my own car, so it practically pays for itself. Instead of looking at the limitations of electric cars, let's look at the advantages:

- Charging the car can be three times cheaper than refueling a car that runs on decaying fossils
- You don't need to go out of your way every few days to find a gas station and refuel (especially nice if you live in an area that has cold weather)
- In the near future, you will be able to get a wireless charger that precludes you from having to plug in anything
- The electric car is likely quieter inside and outside of the cabin
- Your car isn't constantly spitting out pollutants and ruining our air

Not to mention that many American families have two cars. Make your next car an electric car and keep the gas guzzler for those long trips you claim to be constantly taking.

In the actual interview, Elon Musk mentioned the NY Times reporter failed the following three things:1) Didn't have a full battery2) He took detours3) He went above the speed limitAnd gee surprise, your battery ran.

he charged until the car told him "charge complete", which was 90%. you can then "overcharge" but tesla themselves state that this reduces battery life. overcharge is supposed to add 25 miles to the range.

2) He took detours

which amounted to a total of 2 miles.

3) He went above the speed limit

at some point he hit 75. for the majority of the trip, he was going 55, which around here is 10MPH under the speed limit. if you are going 55 in CA, even in the slow lane, you'll get your ass ran into the ditch.

1) can be certain of a full charge every time they leave the house;
2) never take detours, or get forced into detours by road construction;
3) never go above the speed limit;

Given that, I'm absolutely shocked that this isn't already a mass-market blockbuster - it's clearly suitable for all the common use cases!

To be fair, if you do start with a non-full tank, drive longer distances or raise the RPM (by driving it at higher speeds) to a fuel-driven car engine, you can expect that you may not be able to reach the next petrol station (i.e. what you describe is, in principle, not specific to electric cars). The difference is in the advertised range.

I agree in the so far precondition. Now, imagine a time of $10/gallon gasoline price, with the current average wage. You think such a situation is improbable/impossible in the near future?

okay... then i'll buy an electric car when that happens? and you know what? i bet in 5 years or whenever your prediction comes through, electric cars will have better range, fewer quirks, and they'll be more charging stations.

Since I'm not rich enough to afford one of these, yet I still have two cars, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I wouldn't expect people to use their electric luxury car for long trips. Hell, we take our less-efficient car (minivan) on trips because it is more comfortable. It seems to me that the Times was looking for a way to fail the car to make their story better. Most of us would probably commute in this thing.

Car has theoretical maximum range. This range assumes driving optimally (meaning within certain speeds) and assumes you start with full charge. For internal combustion engine, they have similar maximum range, that also includes certain driving speeds, which is usually FAR more constrained then on electric engine based vehicle due to severe torque penalty on ICE when running in non-optimal RPM range for that specific engine - if you wonder why, look up why internal combustion engines need multi-speed gear box while electric engine on tesla only needs one speed for optimal performance.

So the claim is that guy who was supposed to test theoretical max range:1. Didn't top off the tank2. Drove at speeds significantly higher then optimal for fuel consumption3. Chose a longer route4. Did a lot of stop-and-go during the trip

Do find me even one vehicle of any kind on the market that would manage to keep its theoretical maximum range with this kind of driving? Because internal combustion engine's energy consumption would actually increease from this kind of driving style far more then electric engine with regenerative breaking both due to no capture of energy on breaking (it's dissipated as heat on brake pads/drums) and due to engine working in non-optimal RPM ranges for much longer periods in case of ICE.

All in all, if Musk's claims hold, reporter was either very stupid (which could be true - he claimed that he thought that constant stop-and-go would not impact his range) or was intentionally trying to get advertisement for his story.

Goodness, that's pedantic. He means "if you AVERAGE up EVERYONE's speed, it will be about 5 over". It's not the most well-constructed sentence, but most native speakers should be able to figure out what he was saying.

RTFA from CBS. The guy didn't charge the car to full, he then deviated from the projected routes which the system calculated for him.

It's like putting just enough gas in your car, calculating the route on GPS based on the consumption rate of the fuel, then deciding to deviate from the route and expect to get to your destination thinking god will save you.

Sad because I'm pretty sure the reviewer didn't expect the fact that when he drove a computer car it kept logs of his dickheadedry right?